Never mind that his cohorts in the Senate are saying their legislation should be supported because a recent amendment "practically militarized the border." Or that, as has been pointed out time and time again, immigration from Mexico is at a net-zero rate, while deportation is at an all-time high. Sen. Rand Paul is still not going to support the immigration bill because of a so-called lack of border security.

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), a likely Republican presidential candidate in 2016, announced Sunday he will vote against the Senate immigration reform bill because it does not guarantee border security.

“I’m all in favor of immigration reform but I’m like most conservatives in the country [in] that I think reform should be dependent on border security first,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union”.

He said the bill could actually lead to higher future levels of illegal immigration because of caps on work visas for agricultural workers.

Paul introduced an amendment that would have required Congress to vote on whether border security goals have been met before granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. The Senate rejected Paul’s proposal last week.

“Without some congressional authority and without border security first, I can’t support the final bill,” he said.

I don't agree with CNN's Candy Crowley about much, but I think she's right when she noted that Congress deciding when the border is secure will just be politicized. They'll never decide it's secure if they haven't already.

Sen. Rand Paul says he’ll vote “no” on the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform bill, since it doesn’t include his amendment that would grant Congress power to determine whether the U.S. southern border is secure,

The Kentucky Republican had previously been open to supporting the measure, which includes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants that’s contingent on bolstering border security. Paul introduced an amendment that would have required Congress to vote on whether the border was properly secure, but it failed to gain approval this week.

Without that inclusion, Paul said definitively on CNN’s “State of the Union” he would be a “no” vote.

“Without some congressional authority and without border security first, I can't support the final bill,” Paul told chief political correspondent Candy Crowley.

Supporters of the comprehensive immigration reform bill need 60 votes to gain passage in the Senate, but hope a larger majority will help propel the measure in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, where its prospects appear dim. With that goal in mind, an amendment was introduced this week that vastly ramps up resources along the southern border, including 700 miles of new fence.

But Paul said Sunday that provision wasn’t sufficient, saying throwing dollars at border security programs wasn’t any guarantee the problem would be fixed.

“We've thrown a lot of money at a lot of problems in our country,” Paul said. “To me, what really tells me that they're serious would be letting Congress vote on whether the border's secure. If the people in the country want to be assured that we will not get another 10 million people to come here illegally over the next decade, they have to believe they get a vote through their Congress.”

Comments

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service (revised 3/17/2016) for information on our posting policy.